


trans*cendence

by finitedreamer



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Gender Dysphoria, M/M, Trans Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-01-23 00:03:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18538192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finitedreamer/pseuds/finitedreamer
Summary: It's only through the Animus, through the occupation of the bodies of his ancestors, that Desmond finally realizes why he's so damn unhappy with his own.--Or, that one where Desmond realizes he's transgender.





	1. Chapter 1

The thing is, Assassins do that thing where gender isn’t supposed to matter, right? Des’s mom could kill you just as easily as her dad could, and good luck to anybody that thought she’d be easier to take in a fight face on. So training is the same no matter who you are – you still run, still climb, still fight.

And that, unfortunately, is the only framework that the Farm seems to care about – everybody is equal, regardless of what’s in their pants, so what is there to be unhappy about? Judging an Assassin on their capabilities based upon their appearance is a very good way to end up dead.

Well. More-so than usual, anyway.

So when Des’s mom looks at her thoughtfully, a bit after she turns 11, and says “I think it’s time to head to the city and get you a trainer bra,” Des don’t know how to explain how her skin crawls so much she thinks it may crawl off completely and leave the rest of her behind. She doesn’t really know how to explain that it would be probably be preferable to the feeling of that extra band of fabric, sitting right on her rib cage like the feeling of a panic attack.

She sits in the changing room, shaking, topless, after trying on one that her mother had found, saying how it looked “so adult!” The girl in the mirror had looked – like a stranger. Like a horrible vision of a future Des is starting to realize she doesn’t want.

It takes ten minutes for Des to get her breathing under control. Once she has, she slowly redresses, and chooses the least offensive option her mother found without bothering to try it on. It’s basically a black piece of spandex, and although Des’s mother is a bit confused, they leave with three pairs and nothing else.

...

A few months later, Des gets her first period. It feels like betrayal. Like her body can’t be relied upon anymore. Like it can’t be trusted.

That feeling doesn’t exactly get better when she gets rounded up with the other kids just turning 13 and they all get the Talk. Apparently, Des could get pregnant, now, could have a life seeded within her body – and oh, yeah, this is way worse. This is horrible. This is actual horror.

So she gets older, and when other kids her age are starting to look at each other with a bit more than friendly interest, she feels nauseous every time someone so much as looks at her with an appraising eye.

Des doesn’t date, doesn’t kiss, doesn’t fool around – she doesn’t even touch herself.

There’s no pleasure to be found within this body. Just control, and the creed.

...

At age fifteen, Des is chafing from all of it. The expectations, the conspiracy theories, the way they weren’t even allowed to use the internet – she feels like her skin is stretched too thin and that if she stays here any longer, she’ll explode. She doesn’t know how to explain why she feels so unhappy, and the times she’s tried have ended… poorly. It comes to a head on her sixteenth birthday, when a regular spar with her father leaves her with a cut on her mouth – he helps her clean it up, afterwards, and reassures her that it won’t scar, that she’ll still be beautiful.

She doesn’t know why that makes her lash out. Makes her yell at him, makes her finally go through with the plans to run away that have been sitting in the back of her head for months now.

Des leaves that night, head held high, and doesn’t look back.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which des(mond) comes face to face with something he never knew he wanted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's this (trans) feel where you don't know if you want to be somebody or be with them and oh boy. ooooh boy.

She lets it scar. Picks at the scab, over and over again, doesn’t put on ointment, all the things her mother told her never to do. In the end Des looks in the gas station mirror, sees how it twists her lips as she smiles. She likes the way it makes her look, a little wicked, a little devil-may-care.

She likes the way it feels like taking control.

…

Des tries for a while to make it in smaller towns, the ones that feel a little bit like home with dirt roads and pickup trucks and people that learn your name, but there’s always a feeling that she gets, staying in one spot for too long. It’s like there’s a weight on her shoulders that says someone is watching, and it only goes away when she’s in the middle of a crowd.

Within a year she’s living in New York City, because it’s the biggest city she can think of, and the itch between her shoulder blades is the quietest here it’s been anywhere.

…

Years pass in a blur. She lands a gig as a bartender because she’s good at drinks, better at that quiet kind of listening that gets a drunk to tell you their life story. She goes from shitty sublet to shitty apartment, sometimes spending a month or two on someone’s couch, sometimes in the abandoned buildings that litter the city. It’s rough, but she’s free to make her own choices, and that means it’s worth it. It has to be.

…

Then, Abstergo.

…

Then, Altaïr.

…

Lucy breaks her out. Des is stressed, tired, she wants a fucking shower and a _drink, jesus christ_ , but instead she gets stuffed into the trunk of some shitty car that smells like spoiled milk.

It’s been a ridiculously weird week. Des was kidnapped by her childhood boogeymen, experimented upon, and somehow, made to physically live out the memories of her ancestor. She should feel violated, probably. Should feel like some important line was crossed, should be pining for a quiet shift at the bar where everything feels normal and expected.

The thing is. The thing is – she _doesn’t._

…

So Lucy doesn’t take Des home – instead they’re at some new shitty warehouse, and Lucy is asking Des to go back under. To do it all over again, this time willingly.

And, wow, okay, Des sure doesn’t hide her excitement well, does she? "Another trip through time?" she asks, and Lucy picks up on it. She’s obviously confused, but Des doesn’t care. She wants back in, doesn’t bother hiding it. It’s what the assassins want, obviously, and for once even that doesn’t make her want to run and hide, burn yet another fake identity.

There was something addictive in being Altaïr. It’s like a shot of top-shelf whiskey, a sweet burn that tastes so much like self-destruction and heady intoxication. She needs back in. Needs to identify why she likes it so much better than reality. Needs more, like an alcoholic needs their next drink.

They tell her that she won’t be Altaïr this time, she’ll be someone named Ezio, and it’s – disappointing. Altaïr was an ass, but he was. Well. He was family, wasn’t he? And he’s a part of her, now. She can feel him in the way she walks, the way she knows to look for the exits and finds herself thinking in Arabic if she’s not careful. Lucy calls it the Bleeding Effect, says it’s what they want, and honestly if Des minded even a little bit she’d be asking pointed questions about if Lucy knew how it felt, to have someone else’s life bleed into your own to the point where you’re not really sure where the line is, if there even is a line. She really doesn’t, though.

The Animus feels more alive than Des has ever been, and any amount of bleeding is worth it.

Des lays down, and dives in.

…

_this is so much better-_

…

There hadn’t been any mirrors in Altaïr’s life.

Ezio, Des realized very quickly, was a bit of a peacock, and has many – and that’s about where the train of thought ends, because Des steps up to one such mirror and see’s Ezio’s face looking back –

And thinks

_oh_

_fuck_

_…_

Des has never wanted something more in his sad sorry life and they pull him out of the Animus even as he begs to stay, Rebecca babbling as she tries to understand why Baby is making Des react this way, Lucy hovering and asking question after question about how Des feels and finally Sean is the one who hauls Des over to the bed, lets him sit on the floor on the far side with just the wall to look at – and Des tries to get his breathing under control. Tries to process this huge and terrifying _thing_ he’s just figured out.

He has never wanted to be another person more in his life.

He- _he, he he he he HIM_

When Des is able to calm his breathing again, Sean is rubbing circles on his back and looked pointedly in another direction. He can’t hear Lucy and Rebecca behind him. It’s just the two of them, and Des is stupidly grateful.

“I’m good,” he says. “I want back in.”

Sean pauses the circles, which Des isn’t sure he’s happy about, and says “Rebecca is going over the data, said it’d be about half an hour. What happened in there?”

Des honestly has no idea how to communicate the earth shattering realization he’s just experienced, how it feels like his entire life was leading up to that single moment, how he wishes he could peel off his own skin until only the bones remain and have the animus build him back up cell by cell the way it builds up cities, so only that face from the mirror is left –

So instead he just says “Altaïr didn’t have mirrors. Was a shock, is all. I’m fine now. I want back in.”

Sean…. Probably doesn’t believe him. That’s okay. Des doesn’t care, as long as it gets him back to Ezio.

…

He goes back in. And, Des only just 'met' Ezio, but damn if it doesn't feel like coming home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i haven't played AC1 OR finished AC2 yet so i'll probably be adding details as i think of them during playthroughs. was going to wait to write this part until after playing more AC2 but ehhhhhhh it's fine.
> 
> thank you to my two reviewers and everyone that left kudos. you give me life.

**Author's Note:**

> i have not written fanfic for over eight years but i just fell headfirst into the creed of asses and boy am i hooked  
> also this is ~unbetad~ and i'm sorryyyyyy
> 
> my apologies for short chapters - i'm writing this in pieces because wow this ended up being a lot more autobiographical than i initially intended!! and boy i gotta take a break after writing even just this part
> 
> if any of this resonated with you and you DON'T identify as trans, or, like "des", don't really know what this whole transgender thing is anyway, you might want to read up a bit:   
>  [Am I Trans?](https://www.reddit.com/r/ftm/wiki/index#wiki_am_i_trans.3F)


End file.
